June 03, 2011

Last night/this morning my sister had a horrendous travel experience while trying to fly to London, where she just moved...like an hour ago.

She was supposed to fly direct from Raleigh to London at 6:05pm. Instead she boarded at 5:30pm, got stuck on the tarmac for about 6 hours, and landed at JFK at 1:03am. That's right, I said JFK. They had to switch planes and she didn't make it to London until at least 12 hours after that. Getting stuck on a tarmac for more than an hour is my worst nightmare. When I see those news stories about people being stuck for 6 hours, I think I'd rather swim with sharks than feel that pain.

The only truly plan-changing (and ultimately hilarious) travel disaster I had was right before the millennium. With my hair jewels in tow (they were cool in 2000 right?...Oh, no?) my fam, my friend, my sister's friend, and I were heading down to Key Largo...And then our flight got cancelled. Long story short, we rented not one, but 2 cars to just go ahead and drive there. We had just received awesome Walkie-Talkies for Christmas that boasted a range of 5 mile capabilities, so it was a great opportunity to test them out. It was kind of like something you'd see the Griswolds do.

Oooooh wait, did I forget to mention that my dad saw a girl crying in the airport because she was going to miss her NYE plans with her friends in FL, and that he told her to ride with us?? Perfect stranger. Oooh and did I mention that her name wasShenendoah O'Brien.

Halfway through the trip, one of our whips got a flat tire. So naturally we traded the 2 cars in for an Astro van. Because that's the ideal way to travel to Florida with 6 people and a stowaway named Shenendoah.

As night started to fall, we of course rented hotel rooms and slept with the person we had known for 8 hours, because that's really safe. Thanks M & D!

Highlight of the trip: After whispering behind her back for 2 days about her weird name, Shenendoah finally calls her friends in Fort Lauderdale (that's right, she wasn't even going to the same place as us), and exclaims, "Hey guys, It's Shenny!"

It's one of the most hilarious moments of my life. And the moral of the story is that if you ever pick up a stranger named Shenendoah and drive her to Florida, wondering all the while what to call her, it's Shenny.